Maybe Freud Was Right
by GingerAndRust
Summary: Everybody has defenses. A series of oneshots and drabbles based on the psychoanalytic defense mechanisms. royed
1. Controlling

[AN wow, it has been a long time. I got the idea for this series of oneshots and drabbles from Psychology class earlier today. Each story will be based on one of the psychoanalytic defense mechanisms. Most will be Royed.

Drabble one – Controlling

It did not take Ed long to notice his lovers obsessive tendencies. Roy's office was always impeccably clean: pens all arranged in order by length on the right side of his desk, blinds up and curtains open, paperwork stacked without a single sheet out of place. Roy had two cups of coffee in the morning, went to lunch at the same place everyday and always finished his paperwork with a predictable and measured amount of grumbling. He was well coiffed, unwrinkled, and clean-shaven.

The others called the Colonel a perfectionist, but Ed saw his fitful nightmares and understood.


	2. Reaction Formation

_[AN Here is number 2_

Drabble 2 – Reaction Formation

The world saw Roy as arrogant.

To other military men, he was the cool, collected and ambitious young colonel. In whispered tones and behind closed doors, his name was synonymous to ruthlessness, though to his face the military sang nothing but praises. To his staff, Mustang was infallible, and the leader they knew could change things. Roy would give anything to believe them.

The world saw Ed as brash.

The office heard raised voices, hasty threats and hateful declarations and called them his character. He was immature. He just hated the Colonel. His flushed cheeks were only out of anger.


	3. Isolation

[AN _Here is a little oneshot_

Oneshot 1 - Isolation

Roy paced across his office, tracing the edge of his carpet as he waited for news. Nervous chills careened over his shoulders, and he had to wipe his sweaty palms on his slacks. The search party left two hours ago. How long could it possibly take to find a crimson laden alchemist and a suit of armor? He shouldn't have let Ed go alone. Dammit, he had not even asked where he was going.

The car ride earlier that day seemed surreal now. Orange and pink, the sunset washed over the backseat, casting shadows over a face and glinting off eyes that already looked far too old. Ed had looked beautiful. Roy was not afraid to admit that anymore. He had been beautiful, and he had asked Roy to let him go into some blind danger alone, and Roy had let him.

Roy growled deep in the back of his throat. Any better of a man would have thrown the coffee mug he currently clutched in his hands at the wall by now.

Footsteps echoed outside of the office door, and Roy froze.

"Sir, we've located Fullmetal's whereabouts. A young Isballen named Rose directed our unit to his position."

Roy sagged with relief, "Are they alright?"

"We have not been able to locate Alphonse. It has been…" Riza hesitated, "…difficult getting any information out of Fullmetal."

"What's wrong with him?"

"…Roy, we need you to talk to him," replied Riza.

Roy Mustang's team awaited him outside of a church underneath central city. Wan faces matched the white washed walls. Roy swallowed around a lump in his throat.

If anyone wants to tell me what's happened, it would really be appreciated," said Roy.

A rough, discordant sound echoed from the inside of the church. The team members flinched.

"We've tried talking to him chief," replied Havoc. "Nothing gets through. I don't know whether you'll help or not, but it's damned creepy."

Roy nodded and walked forward towards the church doors. When he pushed them open, he wished he hadn't.

Laughter, high, rough, unnerving laughter poured out of the yawning entrance to the church. A blond young man sat in the center of the room; hair, cloths and skin caked with drying blood. Roy froze, chilled by the continued laughter, and stared at Ed. Matte dead eyes turned to meet his.

"Edward," Mustang whispered. He stumbled forwards, unwilling to get too close and yet too mesmerized to look away. He approached slowly, stopping near the edge of the bloodstains. Ed's body shook with hysterics

"Edward," repeated Roy, "Edward, where is Alphonse?"

Ed gasped for air. "Hey Mustang, are you going to leave me too," he giggled.

"No one is going to leave you, Fullmetal. I'm right here. I'm not leaving."

"Yeah, Al was there, too. He was there, and now he isn't. He's just," Ed gestured vaguely around, "not here. Nowhere. He's gone," he chuckled. His body shook as he relapsed into the deep, hoarse laughs from before. Roy guessed the back of his throat must have been bleeding. It sounded like it hurt.

Roy walked forward, boots chipping up flakes of blood, and pulled the young alchemist to him. Ed shook harder, almost thrashing, but Roy just held on tighter,

"I'm sorry," he whispered over and over. Roy never said he was sorry.

When he looked down into those lusterless eyes, he knew Ed was gone.


	4. Schizoid Fantasy

Most people were under the impression that Ed's greedy consumption of books was limited to those directed at alchemy or science. That was not the case. He had fenced with noblemen, felt the salt-laden air lick at his skin and cling to his hair, craved blood, time traveled, killed, maimed, walked with giants, hiked through canyons, and saved the world all in the time it took to ride the train from Central to East City. He liked to know that, were it all to go to hell, he'd have done more than just clapped his hands.


	5. Humor

[AN _This is based on a true story. I have another oneshot coming._

Drabble 4 - Humor

921 Harris Ferry, home to Colonel Elric and General Mustang, was a surprisingly normal and suburban abode. It sat near the turnaround in a small neighborhood a half hour's drive away from Central. Every time one of its residents traveled, tradition dictated that they bring back some new furnishing. As a result, every room was a mishmash of design, ranging from Xingian simplicity to the rich, earthy colors of Creta.

Seven years after its purchase, 921 Harris Ferry burned to the ground

Ed stared up at the fire, stunned. Roy grinned.

"It's a real shame we don't have any marshmallows."


	6. Intellectualization

[AN _I apologize for the brief delay. I had to go fail a history test. _

Oneshot 2 – Intellectualization

It was amazing, Roy thought blandly, how habits could change a person's perceptions. Roy could vaguely remember a time when Thursday nights meant late night meals at one of East City's many sandwich places, and the consuming smell of flower shops as he chose between purple or white orchids to give to whichever date he had the next day. Not much later, Thursdays meant meat sauce and overcooked noodles down at Johnathan's Cretan cuisine with the Hugheses (Gracia insisted that, as long as he remained in Central, he was to eat with the family at least once a week. Roy usually chose Thursdays). At one point, Thursday nights became he and Ed's casual friend's night. At another, it morphed into their "get off at seven and go somewhere nice" night. Roy could remember all of these and the feelings that accompanied them, but, as he waved at the bartender, Eric, asking for another round, Roy realized that, at some point, Thursdays had grown to smell like grilled onion and stale beer.

Eric sat a glass and a coaster down in front of Roy, sighing and turning away. Roy remembered a time, too, when the bartender used to tell him he'd "had enough." Roy hadn't stood for it. Eric eventually gave up.

A young man pulled out the neighboring stool and sat down. He placed his order. Roy's midnight eyes stared down at his glass.

"I don't think what you're looking for is going to be at the bottom, you know."

Roy looked over at figure sitting next to him, "Shows what you know? Maybe I'm just not looking hard enough."

"Depends on what you're looking for," said light brown eyes. Light brown, so close to gold, but so far away.

"It doesn't really matter. It's gone. Doesn't matter," Roy muttered.

"Sure it doesn't matter. You're just drinking like a fish 'cause you like headaches in the morning."

Roy attempted to muster up a glare, "Who are you?"

"What difference does it make? I'm just someone you don't know, and you'll probably never see again. So what did you lose?"

The colonel grumbled, "Someone important to me."

"What like a girl friend or…"

"Yeah, something like that."

"Did they leave you or are they…you know?"

"They're just gone. Dead probably, but I'll never know." Roy twirled his glass. The young man followed suit.

"So why aren't you looking out there instead of in here?"

"I won't find him. I know another man who is wasting his life doing just that. Looking, I mean. Not finding."

"So it's more likely this person you lost is at the bottom of your glass then."

"You laugh, but it probably is," sneered Roy.

The man paused for a beat, pushing his shoulder-length, dishwater blond hair out of his eyes. Roy thought normal blonds just weren't special after you'd seen somebody with spun gold hair.

"I don't get you," the man said at last. "I can't tell whether you've clinging to hope or stomping all over it."

"Th'hell's that supposed to mean," Roy slurred.

"It is like you're waiting for something you know isn't coming back, just so you can tell yourself that you waited."

"They never found a body," said Roy, feeling both more alert and very defensive. "He could just come home any day. Of course I'm waiting. He told me he'd see me later. There was no body so that must mean he's alive somewhere. I know I'm probably never going to see him again. I'm not deluded."

"You certainly are defensive enough. Look, sir," the blond leaned forward, "You're just intellectualizing. You're clinging to the fact that no body was found so you can believe this man's alive, but following it up by saying he's dead so you won't be disappointed. You aren't going to wait forever, are you?"

"I'll wait as long as I need to. I'm not deluded."

The man raised his arms placatingly. "Don't bite me."

Roy growled.

"My dad died at sea," continued the man. "He was a fisherman. We lived in the south. We never found a body, but we had to come to terms with it."

"With what?

"That he was never coming back, and than he would be hitting us upside our heads for wasting our lives wishing for something we were lucky enough to have when we had it."

Roy felt a lump lodge in his throat. "What would you do?"

"I'd walk forwards," said the man. _Stand on your own. Move forward. You've got a good strong pair of legs. You should get up and use them._


	7. Regression

_AN – I am so sorry about the delay. My computer died in a pussing, undulating mass a little bit ago (I didn't know computers had orange goo with which they could puss, but I was obviously wrong). _

Alphonse stared unblinkingly at the slow moving current of the river he had scampered off to, tail between his legs, after another fight with his brother and registered blankly that he might need new coping skills. He shifted is knees up against his chest and tried half-heartedly to stop his imagination from fueling him with soft words of comfort delivered in that painfully maternal voice. His mom was gone. He wasn't a child anymore, but sometimes he wished he could be. Things had been so easy then. He sighed and decided he didn't like rivers.


	8. Repression

AN // You all have permission to beat me senseless. I am so sorry. I know it isn't a valid excuse, but I completely forgot about this series :blushes:. Anyway, now I remember, and I'll try to post new chapters more consistently if you all are still interested in reading. Please enjoy:

Rose couldn't decide whether Ed had completely lacked foresight or whether he had just known her too well to believe she'd listen to a word he said. 'Get to the surface. I'll follow behind you,' he had instructed her. Rose chuckled darkly to herself. Oh, yes, brilliant idea, Edward. He didn't have any idea what would have happened if she hadn't stayed. He hadn't been forced to see Alphonse, lying naked in the recently vacated pool of Edward's blood, writhing, screaming, dying and living from sensory overload. He didn't sit there for hours with the poor kid, murmuring reassuring nonsense into the air and pretending that he could possibly comprehend what it would feel like to deal with the world for the first time in so many years. What would have happened if she hadn't been there to carry the painfully light boy up all those stairs after discovering that he could not walk for himself? She'd had to run all the way up those stairs with her baby, then back down and up again with Alphonse in tow.

Rose rubbed her forehead, brushing her pink bangs away from her face. Ed hadn't had to tell Alphonse that his brother was dead, either. Rose sometimes doubted her choice in telling Al that Edward was dead, rather than simply missing. In theory, it made sense. After watching the stupid boys give up their lives for each other, back and forth, like some sick ball game, she'd realized that there could be no end as long as there was a chance of the cure-all alchemy bringing the other back. So when Alphonse had rasped his first coherent couple of words, "Brother…where," Rose had brushed his hair back, bent her head and said, "I'm sorry, Al. I'm so sorry."

It seemed so rational. The sacrifices had to stop, and she stopped them, but the doubt still gnawed on the edge of her mind. The Al who had looked her in the face and asked where his brother was, putting aside the liquid eyes and fleshy body, had been the Al she had known for years. That old still waters run deep thing. He hadn't said a word after her response, passing out from it all, and she'd taken that to be normal considering the situation. He hadn't awoken again for two days, and Rose had been there to see him stir for the first time. She'd been nervous, fidgety. She'd wanted to leave, to no longer have any responsibility, but she knew she couldn't. So she'd sat there, watching his eyelid's flutter and his brow furrow, and she'd forced a smile when two bronze eyes slid her direction.

"Who are you?"

The worst part was knowing she could be wrong. Everybody else seemed to accept the excuse that the Gate had taken Al's memories, but Rose knew what she'd seen.

Edward hadn't been there to see his brother break. What were memories, anyway? What good were they if they only caused pain?

Rose curled her fingers in the grass she sat in, looking down the hill at the tawny, red-coated boy as he ran through the field below, and felt something shatter.

Damn it, Edward.


	9. Fetish

AN// And another.

Ed did not understand a lot of his lover's quirks, but Roy's obsession with his automail baffled him more than he was willing to admit. He remembered their first time, remembered the adoring time and touches Roy had dedicated to each bolt, joint, and line. It wasn't as though he could feel his partner's caresses. He'd so much prefer Roy just ignore the metal and pay attention to _him_ god damn it, but he never objected when Roy began to drag his fingers down the plate work. Something told Ed that he should just let it be.


	10. Altruism

AN// I'm open for ideas and possible requests if anyone has any they would really like to share. Thanks for reading

Edward tried to help someone in every town he and his brother visited. Be it fixing a ripped doll for a wayward child, helping miners locate ground rich with ore or simply offering to cook and clean, the Hero of the People gained a reputation in towns across Armestris for being philanthropic in his gruff way. Most of Ed's coworkers and friends attributed this habit to his self-sacrificing nature, but Al knew better. His brother believed with all his heart in Equivalent Exchange. Al watched a small smile creep across the Ed's face and wished he could believe too.


	11. Anticipation

AN// Comments are welcome

Roy let out a hiss of a sigh, closing his eyes tight as he held his forehead in his hand. He should have known he'd be too weak to stop the evening before it got out of hand. He'd tricked himself into believing their outing would be innocent. Ed's train home had been delayed due to some trouble on the tracks, and instead of arriving at fourteen hundred hours, the train had pulled into Central around dinner time. Fullmetal had called the office from the station, informing Roy that his damn report could wait until he had at least eaten. Roy scrunched his eyes under furrowed brows. Why had he been so stupid. Why couldn't he have just waited for Ed's damn report or, better yet, ordered the kid to come to the office anyway like he would have ordered any other soldier. But Ed had sounded so exhausted on the other end of the line, and it had been weeks since he'd last seen Fullmetal, and, damn it, he knew he couldn't have the kid, but he could see him, right? Because, if he couldn't see the only thing that made him feel human anymore, Roy thought he might lose it. Maybe he'd lost it already, because that was the only way he could rationalize the thought process behind inviting Ed to dinner to go over the report. He'd made it up at the time: two birds, one stone. Ed could eat, Roy could get his information like the good officer he was, and the status quo would remain unchanged.

The worst part was how nothing really had changed. He'd like to say that he'd noticed for the first time the way candle light could make Ed's golden eyes glitter, how his expression could snap from cool intellectualism to simmering mirth at a pin drop, how Ed had turned into something breathtaking while he hadn't been looking, but Roy had seen all those things before. He'd been cataloging Ed-isms for ages because that was all he could do: watch. Watch and wait and hope selfishly that Ed didn't come into the office glowing one day after having met some sweet thing that moved his world, because, he told himself again and again and again until his mind felt like the scuffed walls of a ball court, it wasn't worth the risk. Don't get your hopes up, Roy. Don't let him in. Don't go any closer because you might just lose everything you've worked for, and you can't do that. This isn't just about you, he reminded himself.

Still, he'd been foolish. It had been too easy to talk with Ed, to feel the knots of tension that had a bad habit of forming in his neck melt away. He felt fluid, relieved, and not for the first time he wished he could just be a friend to Fullmetal. Things would be so much easier.

The cushions of the couch sagged behind him, and Roy started. He caught himself before he let the surprise appear on his face, and turned slowly to look back at the blond leaning against the couch behind him. Ed, who had retuned from the small kitchenette attached to the small sitting room in his dorm, passed Roy a glass, which he accepted without really registering what it was. Aureate eyes darted back and forth between Roy's dark ones, reading something there that Roy was hesitant to guess at. Then, quite quickly, the searching look was gone, and Ed circled around to the front of the couch, collapsing bonelessly against the armrest.

"So I'm pretty sure you can guess what happened from there," he picked up where he had left off. "Well, knowing you, it's probably not even guessing what with that information network you so enjoy flaunting. Gah, I don't even know why I bother anymore." he chuckled, roughly. "Aaron Rhys had set up this transmutation circle that's only purpose was canceling out all other transmutations used in the area. The circle itself, well," Ed's eyes darted to the side, embarrassed but amused, "I'm afraid it was unsalvageable after I dealt that son of a bitch what was coming to him, but I made a sketch in my report file of what it looked like."

"And so you chased a rogue alchemist, blind, into a room where your alchemy was useless," Roy scoffed, leaning on his elbow as he stared down his nose at Ed. "Why do you always do that?"

Ed grinned, "What, run into alchemy canceling circles?"

"No, just, rush into things headlong. You never stop to think things through. You just recklessly barge in, regardless of what the results might be. I can't understand it."

Ed didn't reply right away, and a tightness in Roy's chest warned him that he might have given away more than he had intended. Ed sat up straight, looking him dead in the eye.

"I suppose I just think, 'What's the worst that could happen?' I can handle most things that come my way, and if I can't, well, here's hoping that Al or someone will be there to catch my sorry ass before it hits the ground."

Roy met Ed's gaze for as long as he could before looking away across the room. What's the worst that could happen? He let a small, sad laugh roll from his chest. He could lose his dream. Was anything worth that?

Roy looked back at Ed, whose piercing gaze had not shifted, and wished with all his might that he could answer, "Yes. Maybe something was."

The evening needed to stop, now.

"Don't be so stupid next time, Fullmetal. Alphonse might not always be there to bust you out of your messes," he said, placing his glass down on the coffee table and standing up. Ed followed, looking slightly bereft, and fluid warmth pooled in Roy's chest. No, he told himself, don't look at him. That expression doesn't mean what you think it means. He doesn't love you, and, even if he does, it doesn't matter, and oh God get me out of here.

He barely registered Ed's snide response to his suggestion as he grabbed his coat off a hook by the door. Shrugging it on, he turned back to Ed. What he wouldn't give to just let go? Hell, he'd take Ed just walking forward right then and pushing him up against the wall, because then it would be on Ed's head, not his. When everything fell apart, because it would, he would be able to say that he'd seen it coming all along.

Ed just stood there, waiting. Roy shook his head, turned and left the room.


	12. Introjection

One morning, Elicia Hughes came into the office with her father's camera strung around her neck. She cheerfully captured pictures of her dad's best friends, unperturbed by the struck looks the adults gave her. Riza, the nice lady with the warm brown eyes, knelt down next to her.

"Elicia, why do you have Hughes's camera?"

Elicia smiled broadly, "Well, daddy likes taking pictures, but he can't take them while he's gone so I'm taking them for him. He'll be so upset if he misses anything."

A choked noise sounded from the other side of the room. She turned to see the door to Uncle Roy's inner office slam.


	13. Displacement

He hated the Colonel. Ed knew all that crap Alphonse kept spouting about the Colonel having their best interests in mind was just a twisted form of denial. There was no other explanation that explained why his otherwise intelligent brother seemed to miss all the warning signs. They were all there in that gentle, proud look the Colonel sometimes gave the brothers and in those damn broad shoulders.

Besides, Al still believed _he_ wasn't a bastard.

Bastard! That's what the Colonel was, and Ed swore to remind him of it every time their paths crossed. Mustang had to be put in his place, to understand that no one messed with Edward Elric's life and got away with it. No one manipulated the Fullmetal Alchemist. Ed had been there, lived through that, and he knew that no security was preferable to the alternative.

When Mustang gave up on the Elrics, when he just got up and walked out of their lives, Ed would be ready. That door would close, and there would be no tears and no curses, because he couldn't feel anything for someone who meant nothing to him, right?

This time it wouldn't hurt.

This time...

AN// A double drabble for you all. This one put up a bit of a fight


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